AltaLink Parent Company CEO Warns Law Enforcement Authorities

Robert Card, CEO of SNC-Lavalin which currently owns 100% of AltaLink, had the audacity to recently warn law enforcement authorities that any criminal charges against the Quebec-based engineering giant in connection with the extensive international bribery scandal would immediately threaten the future of SNC and could force it to close down (Globe and Mail).

In an unprecedented move, Card warned that if SNC was charged with criminal offences, the company’s business would be hurt severely. “If the company can’t do business, you really only have two choices. You are going to do some dismemberment and cease to exist entirely, or you are going to be owned by somebody else”, he said. Card threatened that a shift to a foreign owner would jeopardize the 5,000 Canadian SNC jobs that are associated with its headquarters in Montreal. It’s hypocritical that SNC does not seem to worry about Canadians potentially losing jobs in Alberta as it pushes to get approval of its proposed sale of AltaLink to U.S.-based Berkshire Hathaway Energy, owned by U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett.

What Card is suggesting is that, regardless of what criminal charges may well be laid against SNC in order that justice may be served, such charges should not be laid because it could negatively affect SNC’s business and shareholders. Perhaps SNC’s previous executive, including its former CEO and numerous former VPs, should have thought of such possible consequences before they conducted alleged fraud, bribery, money-laundering and other offences in many countries around the world, including here in Canada.

Hopefully, neither law enforcement authorities nor the judiciary will be influenced by the very inappropriate warnings of SNC-Lavalin’s CEO, Robert Card.

For more information on the multitude of corruption investigations, allegations, and charges against SNC executives and other employees, see this link. For more information on SNC’s proposed sale of AltaLink to Warren Buffett, see this link.